No Longer Normal
by Savendia
Summary: At the end of the day, it was Scully alone on her couch trying to forget, to remember the way the world was before it got so complicated.


You have to wonder how Scully copes so well with how much the X-Files (and Mulder) have taken over her life. No spoilers - wait, a sort-of spoiler for Squeeze/Tooms and Shapes, but not anything you'd catch if you haven't seen the episodes.

Disclaimer: They are not mine. I promise I'm not CC in disguise...

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Scully drifted around her darkened apartment with an emptiness she'd never felt before. The TV muttered in the corner, casting the only light in the room. Withered pansies huddled in their pots on the windowsill, and their sad brown forms provided Scully her only companionship.

If she were normal, she wouldn't be here. She would be out on a date, or with friends, or having dinner with her mother. She would have a pet, a dog, maybe, and she'd have to put her flowers up high and out of reach, so he couldn't knock over their cheerful blooms.

Scully sat on the couch and stared around the room with her face in her hands. There would be candles from that store she liked but never had time to get to, and folders of recipes cut from the Home and Garden subscription she hadn't canceled. Her eyes drifted to the stack under the coffee table, piles of magazines she didn't have time read, kept kidding herself she'd get around to, and never did.

If she were normal, she could plan things without worrying she would be gone when the time came around. She could plan visits to her nephew and lunch dates with her mother. She could call someone to paint her bedroom the color on the paint chip she'd picked out five years ago, and not have them show up to a locked door and an empty house. She could have friends who weren't tired of ceaseless cancelations and a stream of half-hearted apologies.

The light from the television caught on something, throwing distracting sparkles around the walls. Her gaze fastened on it, gleaming innocently against the dark wood of the coffee table.

If she were normal, she reflected darkly, it would not be necessary to keep a gun close to hand. She would not need to lock the windows and deadbolt the door. Her heart would not leap to her mouth at every knock on the door, every wrong-number phone call that ended before someone spoke.

Scully stared at the television. Characters scrolled across the screen, living and dying within a frame of unreality. Their adventurous lives ended the moment the actors stepped off-screen. They didn't have to spend night after night huddled under the covers with the light on, willing the gruesome images away. They didn't jerk at every sudden noise, expecting a bullet through their head. Accusing eyes didn't swim out of the darkness to assault them with every mother, father, child dead at their hand.

The confusion and the anger, the lies and the fear, none of it was real for them. At the end of the day, it was Scully alone on her couch trying to forget, to remember the way the world was before it got so complicated. Before it got so dangerous. Before her entire being was focused solely on a quest that wasn't even hers to begin with.

A quest that was at best draining, and at worst complete physical and mental exhaustion. The physical toll was bad enough. Extensive hospital records were there to prove it. Surgery, blood transfusions, virulent cocktails of drugs, hours of agonizing therapy for broken bones and bullet wounds all captured as brief summaries in folders tucked away in a drawer.

Even worse were the secrets. Her friends, the few who hadn't drawn away when she began declining every invitation, were driven away by the thin lies that served as excuses. Bandages and crutches were explained away as clumsiness, or accidents at work. No one wanted to hear that she had been attacked by a liver-eating monster or assaulted by a werewolf. No one would believe that she dealt with alien abductions and violent government conspiracies on a daily basis.

The gun on the coffee table winked placidly at her, its quiet air belying the terror and violence it had witnessed, and been a part of. How many souls haunted the afterlife because of this gun? How much blood had spilled red over the ground because of her hand? The table, black with shadow, seemed suddenly black with the crusting blood of dozens.

Was this what her life had become? Haunted fragments of a soul hiding in the dark with only a gun for comfort and company.

The phone rang. Scully knew who it was even before she picked it up.

"Up for a midnight drive?" His voice asked without preamble. It was joking, teasing and dead serious all at once. "I'll pick you up."

"I'll be out in five minutes." She dropped the phone, knowing he was there already in the parking lot outside her building, never expecting her to say anything but yes.

She hit the power button on the remote, and the television screen went dark. The actors had their own lives back. She pocketed the gun, feeling the cool sleek metal, a comfortable weight in her hand. The actors had their own lives back, and, thought Scully, double-checking the window locks on her way out, she had hers.

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Thank you for reading!

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